Hasta La Gadget!

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Rapper Layzie Bone of the Grammy Award-winning group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony helped a driver who went into diabetic shock and nearly ran into the performer’s vehicle in Wyoming.

Casper news station KCWY-TV reports (http://bit.ly/1R28xfi ) that Steven “Layzie Bone” Howse was heading to a concert in Riverton on Saturday to promote his new album “Perfect Timing” when he saw a car swerving across the roadway. It spun to a stop in front of the rapper’s vehicle. Layzie Bone told the station that he rushed to the man and offered him apples and oranges to help his blood sugar while they waited for paramedics.

The rapper says he was scared for the man and glad he could help.

Wyoming Highway Patrol Lt. Chris Schell says a medical emergency causing erratic driving is rare.

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Information from: KCWY-TV, http://www.kcwy13.com

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0-5 – The critical years

The science is clear; Children begin learning from birth, developing their vision, hearing, language, and cognitive functions very fast in the early years of life and especially in the first year (as seen below).

Children who receive high quality care in the first few years of life score higher in academic and cognitive tests — even a decade after. (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Report).

Who is looking after your child?
For 11 million children in America each week, the child care setting is the primary channel through which they receive the stimulation and interaction they need to develop their brain. On average, these children spend 36 hours a week in child care.

Unfortunately the key providers of this critical type of care and support are paid an average of only $21,490 (in 2013), making child care one of the lowest paying professional fields.

This makes it hard for child care centers to recruit child care professionals who have the requisite education credentials. To worsen the issue, thirty-one states require only a high school diploma or less for child care center lead teachers and forty-one states require a high school diploma or less for regulated family child care providers.

But there is hope.
With the rise of open source education, massively open online courses, and internet access in libraries, it is possible for child care professionals to develop their skills and merit higher compensation.

Providing child care is one of the most complex tasks (and as we have seen the most under-recognized). A child care provider needs to ensure the child’s safety, health, nutrition, emotional, physical well-being as well as stimulate language and thinking abilities.
The latter is becoming more and more important as the total amount of information enveloping us grows at a faster and faster rate.

The skills that will be needed will be the higher-order cognitive traits of creativity, curiosity, persistence (or grit) instead of simply rote memory skills.

So what can be done?
As the Founder and CEO of a science education nonprofit, Iridescent, and a strong believer in open-source technology-based education, I am curious to see if there could be some cross-sector collaborations between for profit institutions that train child care providers, STEM education nonprofit organizations and ed-tech startups looking to “disrupt” a particular field, similar to a partnership we are launching with Town + Country, a nanny agency. Our initial goal is to develop and provide a 15-20 hour training to child care providers that would introduce them to design thinking, creative problem solving, identifying and addressing gender biases, developing a growth mindset (instead of a fixed one). But there is so much more to explore and develop!

There is much evidence to show that it is time we move beyond rote repetition of facts, letters, colors and numbers. The early years are the critical years and it is in these years that child care providers can play a pivotal role. If we come together to provide open, high quality resources for these professionals, we will set up 11 million American children to reach their full potential — with happiness and contentment.

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Points. Miles. Cash back. Rewards. What’s the difference?

Understanding your credit card rewards can be tough! Those that play the rewards game and win, like ThePointsGuy.com and FrequentFlyerGuy.com, will often reference the importance of getting the most value from your points or miles in order to get more out of them than the typical 1 point=1 cent. Here we provide one example on what credit card reward experts mean when they stress value over (number of) points or miles using the Chase Freedom and Chase Sapphire Preferred credit cards as examples.

To most people, the Chase Freedom is just another cash back credit card that offers the typical $100 sign up bonus and a basic 1% back plus 5% back in different rotating categories. You might be shocked to learn that receiving cash back from your Chase Freedom is actually the worst value when you consider all the ways you could redeem your points. If you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred in conjunction with the Chase Freedom, you can instantly combine the Ultimate Rewards points you earn on both accounts and redeem them in a number of valuable ways.

If you take the current sign up bonuses on both cards and combine them, you can quickly see why you should never redeem your Ultimate Rewards points for cash back.

Chase Freedom

• $100 bonus (10,000 points) after spending500 in the first 3 months from account opening.
• $25 bonus (2,500 points) after you add an authorized user and they make a purchase in the first 3 months from account opening.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

• 40,000 points (400 cash back) after spending4,000 in the first 3 months from account opening.
• 5,000 points (50 cash back) after you add an authorized user and they make a purchase in the first 3 months from account opening.

After including the points you earn on the necessary minimum spend requirements, you will have a grand total of (at least) 62,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Now, if you went the typical cash back route like the Chase Freedom advertises, these 62,000 points would be worth $620 dollars. But if you wanted to truly maximize the value of your Ultimate Rewards Points, you can get much more than 1 cent per point.

Your next best option for redemption would simply be to redeem your points for travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal and receive a 20% discount. With this approach, your 62,000 points would increase in value to $744. You just made an extra $124!

However, the true power of the Ultimate Rewards points is unleashed when you elect to transfer your points out to travel partners. Chase Ultimate Rewards points are one of the select few rewards currencies that allow you to transfer out to travel partners on a 1 to 1 ratio. Chase travel partners include 6 airlines (United, Southwest, British Airways, Singapore KrisFlyer, Korean Air and Virgin Atlantic), 4 hotels (Hyatt, Marriott, IHG, and Ritz-Carlton), and Amtrak. The great thing about transferring to travel partners is that because their redemption programs all have different guidelines and point valuations, you can often get two or three times the value of your points than if you were to redeem them for cash back! Although it may require some research, it’s well worth your time.

Let’s use United Airlines as an example. If you were to transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to United’s frequent flyer program, you would be able to book a round trip flight from anywhere in the US to anywhere in Europe for just 60,000 points. If you live on the West Coast, this would otherwise cost you around $1,400!

So you tell me which you would prefer to receive: $600 in cash or a $1,400 plane ticket. To those who have absolutely no interest in travel, perhaps the cash back would be a more favorable choice. As for me, I’ll stick with the free vacation Europe and continue receiving more than twice the value for my points!

Check out our infographic, The Credit Card Rewards Game: Rack up Rewards & Cash in to Win! and our blog to learn more about how credit card points and miles work.

This article originally appeared on www.comparecards.com/blog: Rewards Redemption: Value vs Points.

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You lathered on the nominations and we’ve screen the five most popular options for protecting your skin from the sun. Now it’s time to vote.

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